No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@tech.lgbtBitcoin is 15 years old.
To put that in perspective:
The web started in 1991. 15 years later, in 2006, we had youtube, twitter, amazon, ebay - the world was unrecognisable.
What have we got in that timeframe from #blockchain? Ashes.
"A thriving market for magic beans doesn't make the magic beanstalk real." - lib.rs
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate(I think I first heard this analogy from münecat [www.youtube.com] - love her!)
@noboilerplate I was trying too work out why I couldn't see the first post for this, and I realised it was because I have a filter that hides posts mentioning crypto- 
@WolvericCatkin @noboilerplate
Ah, you hate magic beans.
Half the rust economy seems to be working on completely trustworthy virtual beans 
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@yacc143 @WolvericCatkin I mentally replace the word "economy" with "rich people's yachts", so, yeah... 
@zazzoo@mstdn.ca@noboilerplate @yacc143 @WolvericCatkin The lack of traceability is why people keep pushing for the magic beans - the ability to shuffle money around without central bank oversight, to hide wealth and avoid taxation, to fund illegal activities, to channel money into politics and terrorism, and to easily manipulate the trade value of the currency itself.
The idea that it's not any more real than government-issued currency is nothing more than misdirection.
@yacc143 @noboilerplate Tbh, I set it up early on, when I worried crypto bros might flock to Mastodon because it's *""decentralised""*, and didn't want to deal with the spam... Interestingly, this instance seems quite quiet though, and I only recently received my first spam PM, from one of those "Elon" bots who flooded mastodon.social... 
@yacc143 Yeah, they used a pattern of nicknames along the lines of `elonmuskXXXX` (replaced with a number), and it posted some message about *"reaching out to ""fans"""* on the Fediverse...
@WolvericCatkin @yacc143 @noboilerplate Crypto has its own social protocols, like Lens. There's no reason to go to mastadon which is federated not decentralized.
@WolvericCatkin @yacc143 @noboilerplate Not decentralized enough. They're all over on Nostr.
@Natanox@chaos.social@noboilerplate At first the internet brought true innovation as it was something truly new and world-changing.
However in the last 15 years the only thing we got was value extraction (diverted upwards), and it seems like this will continue until the system eventually breaks.
Generative "AI" only accelerates this as neither laws nor societies are compatible with them. However the value extraction won't stop as it simply can't, by design.
"The old world is dying with the new one not born yet."
@Natanox @noboilerplate gotta get busy imagining a non-currency to limit overconsumption while preserving wellbeing then
@MxVerda @Natanox @noboilerplate Hard moneys like gold and bitcoin disincentivizes consumption. You gotta get rid of the fiat money printer first.
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@Natanox I agree that the walled gardens of the FAANG companies are where most people spend all their time, but I'm hopeful!
look at us, talking on a federated microblogging platform 
@noboilerplate @Natanox We can do this.
single use plastique 
@mook@possum.city@noboilerplate@tech.lgbt how do you propose we buy drugs on the internet?
@schizanon@mastodon.social@mook @noboilerplate ask your bank real nicely
@noboilerplate @mook
Support your local dealer!
single use plastique @mook@possum.city@populistensohn@octodon.social @noboilerplate@tech.lgbt where do you think they get it from?
single use plastique @mook@possum.city@populistensohn@octodon.social @noboilerplate@tech.lgbt
(obvs they could get it from many sources depending on the drug in question but many street dealers do just get shit off the deepweb it's easier even to ship small-> mid stashes that way ) like these days dealing weed is not even profitable
@noboilerplate We got scams, scams, scams, high transaction costs, and scams.
@toriver @noboilerplate *Puts on a helmet and starts singing* Scams, scams, scams...
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@toriver what's your favourite disruptive technology? Illegal money for criminals, illegal hotels, or illegal taxis? What a future! 
@noboilerplate
Turning off my Phone when I get into bed?
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@blabberlicious now that's a superpower
@chogbro@masto.ai@noboilerplate bitcoin is fairy gold.
@chogbro @noboilerplate If your fairies sparkle from electricity.
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@chogbro oooooooooh I love that, I'd not heard that before.
I had heard the one about ai being fey: count the fingers, count the shadows, don't believe what they say...
@strigga_@mastodon.socialAmazing. We overconsume, get bombarded with "alternative facts" quadrupled the speed we destroy our planet.
Bitcoin is a Gem compared to ebay, amazon ans YouTube
Just saying
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@strigga_ I won't defend those at forms, sure. But they have some utility, at least!
@noboilerplate@tech.lgbt @strigga_@mastodon.social I sort of struggle with this, because I see where the argument comes from, but crypto does have some utility for some people... in many parts of the world it ends up being used over national currency for various reasons, and those under financial oppression greatly rely on it
Now just to clarify I largely see crypto as a bust and waste of potential, but it is still useful, at least sometimes :p
@noboilerplate well, it seems to be a very nice tool for criminals and industrials to launder money. but besides of that ?
@tomtrottel @noboilerplate BTC not really, it's an open ledger, so without somebody that washes your dirty money (“mixes money from different sources forward transfers it”), it's rather trivial for law enforcement to see what happened with the coins.
@yacc143 if that is so, besides of bitcoin value speculations, there is no real use ? or is anyone using smart contracts / authentification with btc or similar in any larger context ?
@tomtrottel There are uses for BTC, e.g. AFAIK there are still mixers for it, and while the west has regulated in most countries exchange BTC⇄money strictly, other countries aren't as strict yet.
But yes, BTC is more of a speculation object, and that's how it's treated in many countries tax wise.
OTOH there are coins especially designed to be not trackable via a public ledger, and if you are clever, BTC might be a useful step to hide your exchange into these in/out.
@tomtrottel BTC has only one big benefit, you can buy/sell it and if you do it in small enough amounts, it will not trigger a SWAT team at your home address.
And what you do with it after you've moved it to a new private anonymous wallet, …
But all this involves quite a bit of forethought, …
It's not like "wire me anonymously my illegal money and nobody will find me" by default.
@yacc143 well of course. so, if you put in the effort, it is a tool for money laundry, you just have to split it, and be smart about it. hmm.
@jbond@mastodon.social@noboilerplate Whatever happened to truly anonymous digital cash? ISTR that was an early 90s goal that never seems to have actually happened.
@noboilerplate Isn't Bitcoin working exactly as intended?
I like how Ukraine could use it to receive funds and pay for arms when Russia shut down the banking system early during the 2022 attack.
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@troed oh I didn't say they weren't working as intended. Making rich people richer is the primary goal, and it's very successful at that!
Allowing a cross boarder currency feels like a secondary effect 
@noboilerplate If you believe that to be the primary goal I think you've experienced Bitcoin somewhere past 2017 and not in 2009.
No one in the early days of Bitcoin were thinking about self-enrichment. People gave away bitcoin in "fountains" just to get the economy started - and this took place well up to 2012.
Being uncensorable by a state actor is however one of the primary goals - which is why Ukraine were able to use it when Russia killed all their banking (as well as Wikileaks back when they were sane-ish in 2010 and blocked by all banks, Paypal and VISA/Mastercard).
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@troed fascinating!
@noboilerplate
No wonder: it has been the opposite of scalable from the start. The more you mine, the more ressources are needed to mine a Bitcoin. Same for transactions.
@noboilerplate
Fun fact : the same can be said about deep learning and "neural networks"
@noboilerplate Internet wasn’t suppressed by governments and banksters to such an extent. Popularization of BTC means US dollar dethronement and marginalization of any other fiat currency. No politician with power wants that to loose.
@patryko@woof.group @noboilerplate@tech.lgbt ehhhhhhh debatable, the government was kinda pissed about the internet for a long time, they blocked computer security from advancing and still fuck with encryption standards by classifying them as "dual use military munitions" and stuff in some cases
apparently if I write some funny words into a text document on a computer I create export controlled arms, stupid fucking law tbh
@froge @noboilerplate techno-anarchism for the win! I just think comparing internet to blockchains doesn’t make sense.
@patryko@woof.group @noboilerplate@tech.lgbt totally fair, I don't like comparing them either tbh
@panegyr@meow.social@patryko @noboilerplate a deflationary global reserve currency is a really, really bad idea in the age of globalization
And then it only has the capacity to handle what? A dozen transactions per second? For the low low cost of the electricity consumption of a developed european country
Its value is propped up by extreme speculation and cybercrime. I used to hold a small amount of BTC but closed my position when I realized that unlike shares in a company, it doesn’t actually DO anything
@panegyr @noboilerplate inflation is a mean for governments to reduce debt and to keep masses of people poor.
Stellar 
(
era) @Stellar@mk.absturztau.be@noboilerplate@tech.lgbt nuh uh we got:
pyramid schemes
ponzi schemes
rug pulls
pump and dump schemes
and more energy consumption yearly (wasted) than the entire solar panel production of earth yearly
No Boilerplate @noboilerplate@Stellar "illegal money for criminals" is my least favourite "innovation" of recent years (others include "illegal hotels" and "illegal taxis"! )
@noboilerplate well, we did see a lot of AI/Blockchain MeetUps and pitching events in the late 2010's, which supported an entire cottage industry of baristas, event caterers, and paperboard sign printers. That sort of counts for something. I mean, it would have been more fun if these were just DnD or LARPing events, but it wasn't nothing.
@jcfarris@infosec.exchange@noboilerplate you got Ransomware. Lots and lots of ransomware!
"What have we got in that timeframe from #blockchain? "
We got AI, to keep Nvidia & power generation company shareholders happy as bitmining dwindled.
Plus, a surface global temperature of +0.82°C (+1.48°F) above the 20th century average.